The Cliche' Files: Chocobo
by Project 0506
Summary: Second book of the Cliche' Files: Sephiroth and the Chocobo
1. There's a chocobo under your couch

The Cliché Files: Chocobo

Don't own any FF. It makes me sad. It's all Squeenix.

Chapter the first: Did you know there's a chocobo under your couch?

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Angeal had long since abandoned sprinting. No, this was a full-out, panicked, I-have-somewhere-to-be-and-I-needed-to-be-there-ten-seconds-ago, world's-gonna-end, mad dash.

Help.

One simple word, but it made all the difference.

Sephiroth had PHSed him a single word message, and that was bad.

The only message Angeal could remember being even comparable was back in Wutai. 'Angeal, I have been injured. Unsure of the total extent. Your presence is required. Immediately.' Sephiroth had been sliced open from right shoulder to left hip with a poisoned blade and only a hastily cast _Stop_ had prevented him from bleeding to death. For a man of few words, he sent aggravatingly long PHS messages. Poisoned and bleeding had shortened his communique to fifteen words. For something to warrant a single word...

This was _bad_.

Angeal's skidded around a corner, sending two secretaries and their papers flying. He flung a rushed 'Sorry!' over his shoulder, but didn't stop. Grunts and SOLDIERs flattened themselves against the corridor walls, the slower moving ones doomed to be shoved by the sheer force of the First's passage.

At the end of the passage he could see Genesis snarling furiously at the elevator, jabbing the call button relentlessly. Angeal skidded to a stop next to him, and they shared worried glance.

"Damn it! Hurry up!"

"Stairs?" Angeal breathed.

The red-head glanced up to check their current floor. Sixty. Sephiroth was on sixty eight. "Stairs," he agreed, and the pair raced off. The slam of the door to the stairwell neatly covered the ding of the elevator's ill timed arrival.

Once upon a time they had run up these stairs for training at four thirty every morning. Their entire squad despised their drill instructor. Back then the steps seemed to go on forever. It was admittedly eerily similar.

Finally the pair burst out on the sixty eighth floor, only slightly winded. Without breaking stride, the two took off down the hallway, nearly overshooting their friend's door.

"Seph!" Angeal reached to pound on the door, but heightened SOLDIER instincts caused him to jerk back out of the reach of Genesis' fireball. The dark-haired man made a mental note to talk to Gen _again_ about melting open people's doors. Later though. "Seph!" He called again, slamming into the apartment.

And froze.

"Angeaaaal," Zack whined, "he won't come out!"

Alright, ignore the fact that Zack is lying on his stomach on Seph's carpet. Ignore, also, the fact that there is a large, dirty shoe print (oddly reminiscent of the size and shape of Sephiroth's boots) on the back of Zack's uniform. Prioritize.

A quick scan of the room turned up no Sephiroth. The door to the bedroom was shut; the most likely candidate.

"Seph, damn, are you alright?" Another flare from Genesis, another door-knob melted into an unusable glob. Blood, Angeal's nose immediately detected. Sephiroth's blood. However, not nearly enough for concern.

Sephiroth regarded the pair stonily from his seat on the bed. The expression on his face might, for anyone but his closest friends, be interpreted as indifference. The General was furious.

"Oi, Seph," Genesis called from behind Angeal. "What happened? Cut yourself shaving?" He too had caught sight of the tiny trickle of blood on Sephiroth's right leg.

"Get. It. Out."

It takes a real man to admit your friend scares you. It takes a smart man to back out and let Genesis deal with said friend. So Angeal retreated to the living-room. From behind him he could pick up traces of the entirely too interesting conversation.

"Seph? Are those _teeth marks?_"

"Get it out, before I kill it."

"What did you _do_ pup?" Angeal groaned.

"ME? Angeaaaal, why ya gotta blame me all the time?" Zack unleashed his major talent: the puppy eyes of the eternally fragile and potentially offendable.

"Because I'm usually right."

"I didn't do anything! He was already here when I heard Seph yelling!"

Seph did _not_ yell. Zack probably heard a rather loud breath of air or something. That, however, was not the important part.

"He?" There was someone else in Seph's room?

"Yeeeees, he. I told you didn't I? He won't come out." Zack gestured to the couch.

Oh.

OH!

Curious, Angeal dropped to a crouch, mako-enhanced eyes peering into the gloom of Under-Couch.

"Seph?" Angeal called, staring into bright blue eyes topped by yellow fluff. "Did you know there's a chocobo under your couch?"


	2. A what?

Nope, still Squeenix.

Chapter the second

Genesis laughed.

Or, if Angeal were to be perfectly honest, Genesis howled uncontrollably.

The red-haired SOLDIER wheezed and choked as another giggle interrupted his bid for air. He leaned against the cream wall, clutching his stomach as tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. "A CHOCOBO!" he crowed, and doubled over laughing again.

Sephiroth's fingers twitched in the 'I'm going for Masamune' way.

"Not a chocobo," the General snarled. "_Raised_ by chocobos."

Angeal wasn't sure what that statement was meant to accomplish, but all it did was encourage Gen to laugh harder. As it was, even Angeal's own lips couldn't squash a twitch, and he pointedly did not look at the little blond currently in his apprentice's lap. If he did, he'd probably be howling as loudly as Gen.

"So Seph, why exactly did the President say you should be the one to... babysit?"

"Hojo."

The single word explained quite a bit.

"Oh."

"The 'good' doctor wanted to study my interactions with it."

"Hey!" Zack yelled, echoed by an indignant 'WARK!'. "_He_'s got a name ya know!"

Sephiroth leveled a truly murderous glare at the SOLDIER Third. With movements honed by much practice, Angeal stepped slightly to the right to block the boys from his friend's view. Seph was less likely to kill something if he had to get around Angeal first. Gen owed his life to this particular move several times over.

"Is that so, pup?"

"Yeah!" Zack confirmed. "It's Cloud."

There was a breath of blessed silence, before Gen broke again.

"CLOUD THE CHOCOBO!" And once again, Gen was reduced to tears and guffaws.

Angeal weighed the pros and cons of turning around. Pro: he wouldn't have to watch Seph murder Gen, and so wouldn't really be a witness. Con: he might start laughing too, prompting Seph to kill both of them.

Sephiroth forwent the sword, wrapping long fingers around the red-head's neck.

Decided. Angeal turned his back on the potential execution.

Oh damn.

It was just too _cute_!

Huge, blue eyes blinked up at him from a face topped with fluffy, gravity-defying locks that put the Pup's to shame. "So," Angeal began, crouching, "Cloud, huh?"

"Chocobos don't have a real big vocabulary," Zack defended hotly, glaring.

"Right, right. Sorry." When did he start to be the one placating Zack? The Third seemed satisfied with his hands-up, palms-out, I'm-backing-down gesture, and grinned. Angeal swore he had a pregnant woman's mood swings.

"Okay! Introductions!" Zack exclaimed, loud enough to cover the ominous crash from the General's vicinity. "Angeal, Gen, Seph, _this_ is Cloud." Then he turned to the blond and... Oh Gaia, Angeal was developing a migraine.

"Zack. What are you doing?"

Zack paused mid-wark. Idly, Angeal noticed that the sounds of violence from behind were gone.

"I'm telling him who you are." The look Zack gave his mentor was oddly reminiscent of ones the boy had received after saying something incredibly idiotic. After a moment of the Stare of 'why do I put up with this?', the dark-haired boy returned to his conversation.

"Wark warkwark. Wark _wark_ WARK warkwarkwark. Wark."

"Wark, wark," Cloud responded. "Wark wark _squawk_ Wark waaaark."

Zack giggled, and warked agreeably. "Hey Seph," he called, "he _really_ doesn't like you."

"I noticed," the silver-haired man bit out.

"Wait." Genesis shook his head rapidly. "Wait. Fair. You speak Chocobo?"

Zack stared at him, then slowly shook his head in disappointment. He glanced over at the blond boy. "Wark wark." Cloud tumbled to the side, hysterically , for lack of a better word, _giggle-warking_. Slowly Zack turned back to Genesis, with eyes filled with concern and pity. "Gen," he said carefully, "_nobody_ speaks chocobo."

Whatever Sephiroth had been holding snapped.


End file.
